Diagonaldi Very well executed

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

jlthornb51 Tino Struckmann, superb actor and visionary director, has filmed one of greatest dramatic accounts of the French Occupation and Normandy landing in this great motion picture, The Red Rose of Normandy. An epic film of unusual power and scope, the saga is part love story and yet primarily focused on the heroic beach fighting in June, 1944. Careful attention has obviously been paid to the technical aspects and the battle scenes are nothing less than harrowing in their realism. Some of the sequences detailing the enormous American assault are overwhelming in their intensity and firepower. The cinematography of vast panoramas and magnificent tracking shots of the beach are breathtaking and one can not help but be moved to tears by the sacrifice depicted. A sterling cast is truly exceptional and the performances uniformly excellent. With haunting imagery of humanity at war during the horrific fighting for a foothold on Hitler's Europe, this is a film for anyone interested in knowing the true hell of WWII battle.

johnflewis I rented this from a Redbox just before a winter storm. I had never heard of the film, but I expected to be snowed in and everything else was out of stock. The title has been shortened to just "Normandy" and the leading lady's name omitted from the credits. This isn't so much a movie, as an excuse for reenactors and military vehicle collectors to show off their hardware, and the hardware is fascinating. I can't imagine how one goes about maintaining 70 year old German tracked vehicles. Normandy also has lame dialog, wooden actors, anachronistic mini-skirts and chubby soldiers. If you can get past all of that, and Claudia Crawford's freakish lips, it is actually rather entertaining. If you are interested in old military hardware, this movie is well worth $1.27

Alex Heaton (azanti0029) I picked this up recently in the UK, where it has been released under the title 'Battle Over Normandy'. I really wish I hadn't. I brought another film very similar to this recently called 'Rhineland' and while this isn't quite as bad as that, its not far off. Before anyone accuses me of having a dig or personal attacks - I have no problem with low budget movies of this type, and thought the recent Saints and Soldiers 2 was a very good effort in the latter regard. Secondly I know how difficult making something like this can be, especially if you decide to take on so many jobs as Tino Struckman appears to have done here, but then you must also take the blame for the failings and unfortunately there are plenty. The plot, such as there is, see's a German Soldier (Played by Tino) return from the Russian Front to be posted in Normandy where he ends up near his love Klaudia (Claudia Crawford)who works as a nurse. The Allies invade, there are some fall outs out with the Gestapo and people are imprisoned and breakout, there is a battle and people die. What the production had going for it was the obvious involvement of a huge number of WW2 rein-actors and their resources with a whole plethora of tanks and vehicles on display, and while these are put to good use, this effectively turns the film into a re-enactment video. The score for the film is so loud in places you cannot hear the dialogue, and the two leads in the film lack any real dimension or background that makes their relationship seem real, despite the brief presence of the girls father.The film does have a couple of things going for it - The scenes in Russia were quite nice, and some attempt has been made, at least in a few shots to make this look like it wasn't shot in America but a few simple things, such as old style European Road signs, could have made a lot of difference in firmly placing this elsewhere. While yes there is attention, where possible to historical accuracy, there's a lot of problems with it too. Its not just the lack of boats in the Normandy scenes, but the constant mix of units and uniforms, with SS wandering in and out all over the place with other units. Sure that did happen, but here its really distracting. You have the same vehicles turning up in different scenes set in different places, where scrim over the ID numbers painted on the side would have sold that problem. To be honest these are minor niggles which probably bothered other people more than they did me. The main gripe I have is the script, dialogue and characterisation. Case in point being, that there isn't any. The script is basic at best and serves no real purpose it seems than to get the leading man a kiss with the leading lady. Supporting characters are given no chance to breathe or screen time, so there is no sense of presence of any other actor on screen at any time, apart from the leading lady who you cannot miss with her bright red lipstick and non regulation very short nurses uniform. Mr Struckmann, does not look or sound German in anyones' imagination, and you have actors here all doing different style accents with the odd German word thrown in for good measure, but no one actually attempts a German accent and when a letter is read out in a voice-over to a German Soldier its done in a posh British accent. Some of the cast playing German officers make a good stab at their scenes but the continuity in their scenes is terrible. There also seems little point giving the American soldiers actual dialogue as their characters are not key to what little story there is beyond being the opposing force. Some of them speak and we see their interaction - Why I have no idea, probably because that was the deal with the re-inactment society, in which case okay, lets have a main American character in there too, and follow his story parallel to the Germans instead of these meaningless unmemorable faces that we have invested no emotion in and couldn't care who they are. If this is a German storyline, then focus on the actions of a German platoon and keep the Americans simply as the enemy, after all, whose perspective is this from? The German lead surely? It seems a wasteful shame that having gathered up the resources in hand, people didn't sit down and say 'Okay, what can we actually make this story about?' because what attempt there is at a script is woefully bad. The lines are just so awful, that they make an episode of Sunset Beach look like Oscar winning material. Getting a few decent actors from either a local drama group or even some on deferred payment would not have been impossible if there was a good script here. Sadly low flying scenes of American fighter Bombers are all but wasted in a battle where the stakes for us as an audience are really non existent and the ending instead of moving me, was just devoid of emotion, which at least made it on par with the performances of the two leads.

jamesclisby where on earth did they get all that hardware, tanks planes and weapons?? and no fake digital stuff, I love a good old fashion war film, and the girl was hot too, good story line and despite its a low budget film they did a great job any war or action buff must see i read some of the reviews and it seems very personal for some people, it seems unfair, a lot of people do not give these guys proper credit, it is an awesome film and especially seen in the light of the low budget, and when one look at all the hardware they put in the film it is quite good its OK shot but some shots are amazing and no film have that much real hardware in any film, million dollar films just make it up with digital stuff these guys actually going the real stuff, well done